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Lawyer Chris Tennet faced a lawyers disciplinary penalty hearing in Wellington on Friday. (File photo)
A prominent Wellington lawyer faces the possibility of being struck off after a professional disciplinary hearing.
Striking off would prevent criminal defence lawyer Chris Tennet working as a lawyer.
But Warren Pyke, speaking for Tennet at a hearing in Wellington on Friday, urged a disciplinary tribunal to let him continue practising with someone else overseeing the administration. At worst he should be suspended temporarily, Pyke said.
The lawyer representing a professional standards committee, Matthew Mortimer-Wang, said if suspension was imposed it should be at least 18 months, at the higher end of what was available.
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Tennet has appeared in high-profile trials and appeals during his 40 years as a lawyer.
But in October last year the Lawyers and Conveyancers Disciplinary Tribunal found a misconduct charge proved against him in several respects.
The tribunal expected to issue its penalty decision within two weeks.
The investigation into Tennet’s actions appeared to have incidentally uncovered fraud in his office, the tribunal said in an earlier decision.
The core complaint against Tennet dated from 2017 when he was acting for the partner of a well-known criminal who had also been a client of Tennet.
The woman, whose name was suppressed, did not give evidence before the tribunal but, based on Tennet’s evidence, the tribunal described her as “vulnerable”.
It found the woman was sent a $3450 invoice Tennet knew was a lie in an attempt to lever money from her knowing, just days before, the man who she depended on to pay her legal fees had severely assaulted her.
The invoice was said to be for a privately prepared drug and alcohol report. The report could have been free of charge through the court. The actual cost of the private report was supposed to be $1200.
In the end Tennet withdrew from the woman’s case when a conflict of interest arose. The woman saw a court-appointed alcohol and drug report writer and it was he who complained about Tennet when the woman told him Tennet invoiced her over $3000.
Tennet deleted the privately-commissioned report, without giving a copy to the woman’s new lawyer or the woman herself. He admitted that the report belonged to the woman.
Tennet had employed a convicted fraudster, Brian Hunter, as his office manager. Pyke said Tennet did not try to place any blame on Hunter.
But in evidence at Friday’s hearing Tennet insisted that he did not expect the woman to pay the bill. He apologised in writing for his conduct.
Mortimer-Wang said Tennet was still minimising what he had done, even though he had done what he could to collect the money.
Chairing the tribunal, Dr John Adams said it was still in the dark about why Tennet had done something so wrong. It wasn’t a matter of checking an invoice was correct, it was the dishonesty in lying to a client, he said.
The tribunal heard evidence, the detail of it suppressed, about a volatile personal relationship Tennet was in over the period of the misconduct.
Another member of the tribunal, Gaeline Phipps, pointed to Tennet having previously been a member of a lawyers’ ethics committee.
Pyke said Tennet had references from other lawyers, and people he had represented, speaking of his positive qualities.
But Mortimer-Wang said in the past Tennet had criticised the integrity of people administering legal aid and working in the Ministry of Justice.
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